You could be equipped with the skills to create the next “it” dress, state-of-the-art building, or revolutionary digital art—but if you can’t sell your wares, says global design school Raffles Design Institute Manila, it’s hard to make it in today’s cutthroat design industry.

Like a luminous Venus rising from the sea atop a half-shell, pearl-covered Chanel models in light, liquidy fabrics emerged from a giant sea anemone onto a catwalk transformed into a sprawling undersea kingdom.

It was a scandal of epic proportions. In February last year, fashion designer Puey Quiñones was caught trying to pass off a department store-bought jacket as his own creation. Shea Gamboa, the furious bride-to-be whose groom Jhon Maala commissioned the suit for their wedding, tweeted about what people soon referred to as “a fashion scam.”

When the feast of Sta. Rita de Cascia comes every May 22, expect fashion designer Oskar Peralta to be there at San Agustin Church, attending to the carroza of the saint, decorating it with red roses for the procession after the 5:30 p.m. Mass. Oskar has been doing this for the past 40 years, since his client Providad Herrera told him about the devotion to Sta. Rita de Cascia in 1972. Oskar didn’t know the devotion would change his life.

The start of haute couture week in Paris is a must on any self-respecting fashionista's calendar. But day one of the French capital's fall-winter 2012 shows was different: It's what's called a fashion event.

It’s this piece of advice that fashion designer Geof Gonzales shares with contestants of Look of Style Awards 2012. He won this design competition last year with his edgy, sculptural, “salable” designs that came in unique fabrics.